Dear John,
When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicaid and Medicare into law in 1965, we as a nation made a simple but powerful promise for our own future: that aging, illness, or low income would not prevent Americans from getting the essential healthcare they need. Today, that promise is being shattered, and it’s not inevitable. It’s a preventable choice by the GOP.
The Republicans’ recently passed “Big Brutal Budget” slashes $1 trillion from Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act, the largest health care cuts in U.S. history. On top of that, an automatic $490 billion cut to Medicare is looming. All to pay for massive tax cuts for the ultra-rich.
These aren’t just replaceable numbers in a spreadsheet. They translate directly into more than 15 million people losing coverage, hundreds of rural hospitals shutting their doors, a loss of 1.2 million jobs by 2029, and -- most devastating of all -- an estimated 51,000 preventable deaths every single year.
Who in good conscience could support all this unnecessary human suffering? It takes a Musk-like attitude that “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”
Send a direct message to Congress: Invest in Medicaid and Medicare, and protect the health care Americans have relied on for generations.
All of this suffering is not only cruel, it is avoidable. These cuts are being made to bankroll tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% -- prioritizing the richest Americans over the health and survival of the rest of us. At a moment when Medicaid and Medicare provide a lifeline to over 100 million people, gutting them is nothing short of a manufactured tragedy.
The public is clear: Americans overwhelmingly support Medicaid and Medicare, with 83% viewing Medicaid favorably -- including a majority of Republicans. Yet if Congress fails to hear from us, these cuts will stand, and some lawmakers are already pushing to cut even deeper.
On the 60th anniversary of Medicaid and Medicare, we face a stark choice: to accept the deliberate unraveling of programs that have saved millions of lives, or to take up the fight to protect and strengthen them. This tragedy is preventable -- but only if we act.
Send a direct message to Congress: Protect Medicaid and Medicare. Don’t let the greed of billionaires shut down healthcare for ordinary Americans.
Thank you for taking action to prevent this preventable tragedy.
- Amanda
Amanda Ford, Director
Democracy for America
Advocacy Fund
